Chapter 134 – Who’s the Senior Here, Exactly?

Chapter 134 – Who’s the Senior Here, Exactly?

“Strange! Why does it feel like Breadfruit is being consumed so much faster lately?”

Lilith rode her broom above Breadfruit Grove, searching for trees that still had fruit hanging on them—ones that hadn’t been picked yet.

She’d already flown past the center of the grove. Normally, by this point she’d see whole stretches of unpicked Breadfruit trees, but now the branches were still bare—the fruit had already been taken.

Along the way, she’d spotted several first-year little witches walking through Breadfruit Grove.

And they weren’t Mo Lan’s group either—just ordinary little witches.

Hadn’t they all learned Culinary Magic already? Why were they still coming to pick Breadfruit and putting themselves through this?

Lilith was certain something was going on here!

The more she thought about it, the more wrong it felt. After spotting yet another first-year little witch, she landed and asked her about it.

So it turned out Mo Lan had come up with something new again!

Not the least bit surprising, really!

But a Status Card upgrade? Magic progress bars? An internal first-year progress bar competition? Free card draws?

“Why isn’t there one for second-years?” Mo Lan stared at Lilith, who had come looking for her, and asked in disbelief, “Senior! Wouldn’t it be bullying if upperclassmen competed against underclassmen?”

“Who said anything about competing with you!” Lilith snapped. “I’m talking about the progress bar! Upgrade mine—I want to buy it!”

“Even if it turns red, there’s no card draw, okay!” Mo Lan emphasized again.

“I’m not that shameless!” Lilith said. “But it’s half price right now—deal!”

Knowing Mo Lan’s shrewd merchant nature, if she didn’t buy now, the price would definitely go up later. This feature was extremely valuable!

“Of course!” Mo Lan pulled out a sheet of parchment and wrote up a contract.

Lilith handed over her Status Card.

Mo Lan placed the card back into the Book of Cards to add the new feature. When she pulled it back out, she instinctively glanced at it.

Huh? The progress bars for all the familiar spell names seemed to be green!

Even the Apprentice-level Household Magic ones were like that.

Of all the spells Mo Lan had learned, only the Levitation Spell was red.

Lilith signed the contract, then took the card back and looked at it.

She had expected to see a sea of red with the occasional green.

After all, Mo Lan’s studiousness was famous throughout the school.

But now, red and green were split roughly half and half, and the red ones were all spells that first-years couldn’t even learn yet.

This was absolutely absurd! Didn’t it kind of make her—a senior with a whole extra year of schooling—look a bit too useless?

“What level have you practiced all these spells to?” Lilith asked, unwilling to accept it.

Mo Lan pulled out her own Status Card and showed it to her.

There were no progress bars on it, but the spell levels were still visible.

“Wait, why did you practice Spring Water spell all the way to Beginner level? Is your total mana capacity not large enough? Is the water flow not fast enough? You’re already an Advanced Sorceress—just learning the Spring Water spell should be enough to fill a water tower quickly, right?”

“Same with the Light spell—with our mana capacity, we should be able to produce a large light orb at just Apprentice level!”

“Fine, Spring Water spell and Light spell I can let slide, but why did you bother practicing Flame spell all the way to Beginner level? Isn’t a small flame enough to start a fire?”

“Cleaning spell, Tidying spell, Repair spell—I use those daily too, and I’ve been practicing them. When did you even learn those? How is your progress faster than mine?”

“What? You only learned Tidying spell and Repair spell last week? And on the first day you could already tidy bedding and repair a broken bowl?”

Compared to all that, the planting magic, Fertile Soil spell, Growth Acceleration spell, and Lush Flourishing spell didn’t even seem outrageous anymore—after all, this year’s little witches had cultivated far more farmland than their class had, and more farming meant faster magical improvement… as if!

Lilith was completely shaken!

She was the senior? She should be the junior instead!

After a long silence, Lilith finally said, “Forget whether the upperclassmen want to buy it or not—you need to make this progress bar thing public… those who want to buy will come on their own!” She shouldn’t be the only one taking this blow!

Mo Lan nodded. “I’ll add the announcement to the poster outside the warehouse one of these days.”

Lilith didn’t want to say another word. She needed to go back and practice her magic.

Spring Water spell, Light spell, Flame spell—fine, she’d considered those good enough and hadn’t bothered deepening her practice. But she’d been studying Household Magic and Plant Magic for so long now—how could she be worse than an underclassman?!

And the spells from the second-year curriculum too—if she didn’t practice them properly soon, she was afraid they’d eventually turn green. That would be truly terrifying.

In the neighboring courtyard, Vasida watched Senior Lilith shoot toward the dormitory ahead like an arrow loosed from a bow, and shook her head with a sigh. “Well, there goes another one who’s taken a hit!”

Mo Lan: “…”

Had she really dealt a blow to her senior? She felt like her senior had dealt a blow to her instead!

Her senior had already learned so many spells!

Having proofread the second-year workbooks, Mo Lan knew that several of those spells weren’t even required learning for second-years.

No, no, no! She needed to hurry up and finish reading through the first-year required and elective book lists, then dive into researching 《The Witch Magic Catalog》 to learn more useful spells.

Amisha and the others: “Which one of you is going to expand Breadfruit Grove? At this rate, the Breadfruit will soon be growing slower than they can eat it!”

“I’ll go cast a few Lush Flourishing spells! And plant a few more acres while I’m at it!”

“They’re pushing themselves way too far ahead of schedule. I doubt they can keep it up for long.”

“With Mo Lan around, you think they can stay calm? Even I’m a little afraid that one day all of Mo Lan’s spell levels will surpass mine!”

“How is that possible! How many clones do we have studying at once?”

“With how much she loves learning, could she really give up becoming Headmistress someday?”

“…”

“With them working this hard, shouldn’t we as teachers lighten their load a bit? The second-year math classes…”

“Absolutely mandatory! Didn’t you see Iris spending over an hour calculating percentages and still getting the answer wrong? Mo Lan was right—if your math is too weak, you’re easy to cheat!

Starting next year, everyone except first-year newcomers will have to take math classes! Fourth and fifth-years will get a crash course at the end of the school year, and after that they’ll have to self-study.”

…

Later, when she went to the Castle for classes, Mo Lan added the announcement about the progress bar feature to the poster.

And sure enough, seniors did come to her one after another to buy it.

Second-years were one thing, but even third and fourth-year seniors came to buy it.

For them, the progress bar feature was essentially useless.

After all, they had already begun specializing in the magic they were naturally talented in.

In those areas, Mo Lan certainly couldn’t compare—the progress bars would all be red, unable to display properly.

“We’re not buying it to look at the progress bars now—we’re buying it to see when you catch up to us! Besides, isn’t it half price right now?”

They had all heard about Lilith’s meltdown.

In short, they were simply curious to see just how far Mo Lan could ultimately go.